AUTHORS

Elizabeth Daigneau -- Managing Editor. Elizabeth joined GOVERNING in 2004 as an assistant web editor. In addition to her editing duties, she writes about energy and the environment for the magazine. Before joining GOVERNING, she was the assistant to the editor at Foreign Policy magazine. She graduated from American University in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and literature.

75 percent of Americans can’t put solar panels on their property. Community-owned solar gardens allow those people to take advantage of renewable energy for a fraction of the cost, but they need state and local support to grow.

Massachusetts was the first state to offer so-called green bonds to fund environmentally friendly projects. The only thing new about the bonds, though, is the word ‘green’ -- a small addition that may be making the state big bucks.

After two storms left nearly 1 million Connecticut homes and businesses without power last year, the state began testing whether small electric grids can provide power even when the main grid loses it.

Governing is launching a multiple-part series on aging in America. Beginning in September and continuing for the next few months, we're exploring the impact of this generational shift through in-depth stories in the magazine as well as additional data and interactive content at governing.com/generations.

In October 1987, the first-ever issue of Governing debuted with a cover story on how in 1980, power and responsibility shifted from the federal government to the state and local level. Now, the same process is taking place again -- but from the states to cities and counties.

New York City has shed its pop-culture image as a dingy, dirty burg where all the streets have rats and all the apartments are full of cockroaches. Still, it's hard not to snicker at the news that a new breed of cockroach has been discovered in Gotham And

A 2006 study found that only about 10 percent of Vermont's youths who have grown up in the foster-care system enroll in some form of post-secondary education. The College of St. Joseph in Rutland has launched a program to help them transition to college.

Minnesota is the only state to limit gifts drug companies can give doctors, but its cap of no more than $50 a year in free food or other presents may catch on elsewhere. In September, New Jersey created a task force to examine ways to set similar limits. The freebies are seen as unduly influencing prescription-writing and raising costs.

With health costs, retiree benefits and other local government
expenses increasing every year, localities are asking their agencies
to get creative in finding new revenue. The Department of Parks and
Recreation in Jefferson, Georgia, did just that this past August when
it launched a community radio station.

Nonprofits have always been subject to high performance benchmarks to ensure they provide quality services. Now, New York State is making sure that the state agencies that contract with nonprofits are doing a better job.

Nearly 1,000 lakes across the country are having their health tested for the first time in years, as states and localities take part in a first-of-its-kind survey by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

San Jose has long been the capital of Silicon Valley, and Austin, the
center of Silicon Hills, the Valley's clone. Lately, the two high-tech
cities aren't fighting over microchips, software or dotcoms, but to
become powerhouses for clean technology: solar panels, wind farms,
fuel cells and biofuels.

A push is on in state legislatures to ease the serious shortage of
organ donors. With more than 94,000 Americans waiting for a liver,
kidney, cornea or other organ, many states are looking at the uniform
organ donation laws they adopted in 1968 and debating an update.

In an experiment with the city of Houston, the Johnson Space Center
this spring let its employees work flexible hours. As a result, the
average travel time along the NASA Parkway was cut by about 5 minutes-
-from 22.7 minutes to 17.5 minutes.

This summer, the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor
Vehicles approved its first online Advanced Driver Improvement course.
It's a 12-hour class required for Florida drivers who have temporarily
lost their driving privileges because of excessive points, habitual
traffic offenses or court order.

Amid the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina, families were separated in the evacuation and sent to different cities. In some cases, it took weeks before they were reunited. Texas officials don't want that to happen should a disaster strike their state. To avoid it, they plan to track evacuees using scannable ID bracelets.

With the Gulf Coast reeling from Hurricane Katrina and the body count mounting in Mississippi, Harrison County Coroner Gary T. Hargrove turned to an entirely new use for radio frequency identification tags: to identify and track the dead.

Over the past five years, Indiana has lost money on its toll road. In January, its fortunes changed: The state was offered $3.85 billion by a Spanish-Australian consortium for the right to maintain and operate the road. If the offer is approved by Indiana's legislature, the influx of cash would fund all of Indiana's road projects for the next 10 years with money to spare.

In a sign that Baltimore's embattled housing authority is turning things around, the agency has been accepted into Moving to Work, a federal program that gives local housing agencies wider management leeway. Currently in place in 23 cities, Moving to Work allows housing agencies flexibility to create solutions specific to their communities.

This year's Recognition Awards from the National Association of State
Chief Information Officers focus on turning technology into an
effective management tool. The eight award winners--from four states--
were honored for adaptations that led to substantial cost savings and
revenue growth.

The public sector continues to fall behind the private sector in total
compensation, and for the second straight year, growth in salaries has
been sluggish, according to an annual public-employee compensation
survey by the American Federation of Teachers.

Cities are still hot on the idea that if they build it, it will pay off. Over the past decade, new public capital spending on convention centers has doubled to $2.4 billion annually, and 44 new or expanded convention centers are currently in planning or construction stages.

In the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, 2001, private ferry
company NY Waterway proved a lifesaver for 65,000 commuters as highway
and rail access between New Jersey and Manhattan was cut off ["Do You
Believe in Ferries?" March 2003].

In the aftermath of the attacks on September 11, 2001, private ferry company NY Waterway proved a lifesaver for 65,000 commuters as highway and rail access between New Jersey and Manhattan was cut off ["Do You Believe in Ferries?" March 2003]. Now, the once successful ferry service is in financial trouble.

The Democratic convention wasn't the only thing that caused a stir in Boston this summer. After declaring bankruptcy, the FAO Schwarz toy company abandoned its Back Bay store along with its 12-foot, 3-ton bear outside on the corner.

In the ongoing quest for new water sources, Orange County, California, is digging deep to extract high-quality water. Known as colored water, the brownish water is safe to drink but has remained largely untapped because of its off-putting hue.

The wildfire season in New Mexico has sparked more than just wind- whipped blazes. Tourism officials kindled a heated exchange when they asked television stations to drop their sensationalistic onscreen banners because they were scaring people away.

Fort Lauderdale's efforts to project an upscale image now extend to its lifeguard stands. The city has installed eight new stands that come with spacious interiors, aluminum siding, bulletproof glass and ramps--at a cost of $28,000 each.